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THE CRISIS OF MISSIONS ; or, The Voice Out
OF THE Cloud. i6mo, paper, 35 cents; cloth,
$1.25.

EVANGELISTIC WORK IN PRINCIPLE AND
PRACTICE. i6mo, paper, 35 cents; cloth,
$1.25.

THE ONE GOSPEL; ok, The Combination of
THE Narratives of the Four Evangelists in
One Complete Record. i2mo, flexible cloth,
red edges, 75 cents; limp morocco, full gilt,
$2.00.

THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO.
Publishers, 740 and 742 Broadway, New York.

STLIM15LING STONES REMOVED

FROM THE

WORD OF GOD

ARTHUR T. PIERSON

"■Gather out the stones.''

NEW YORK
THE BAKER &• TAYLOR CO.

740 AND 742 Broadway

Copyright, 1891, i;y
THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO.

171, 173 Macdougal Street, New York

A WORD OF PREFACE.

We use the expression, "Stumbling Stones,"
merely by way of accommodation. The most
devout and patient students of the Word of
God fail to find inconsistencies, contradictions
or real discrepancies in the Bible. All difificul-
ties are due either to the imperfection of the
medium of transmission, human language ; or
to the imperfection of the receptacle of the
truth, the human mind itself. Our limited cap-
acity, or our limited point of view and range of
vision, may account for apparent imperfections,
obscurities and disagreements in the Divine
Word.

The purpose of this little book is not so
much to reach those who accuse and assault
the Inspired Word, as to help believers. That
old Saint, Kleker, told D'Aubigne, that to
remove one difficulty out of the way of a
caviller only makes way for another ; and that,
if one will only take Christ as a complete
Saviour and make a full surrender to Him,
difficulties will commonly vanish. We be-

IV A WORD OF PREFACE.

lievc that it is the heart that makes the the-
ology ; and that most of our doubts may be
ultimately traced to an " evil heart of unbelief "
that departs from the living God.

Nevertheless even the most candid and
reverent believer finds in the Word of God,
especially in the English Bible, some difificul-
ties or hindrances in the way of his understand-
ing, if not of his faith ; and such disciples it is
our humble aim to help :

1. By removing unnecessary stumbling
stones out of their way ;

2. By enabling them to understand what
may have been obscure ;

3. By laying down certain laws or " canons "
of Interpretation ;

4. By exposing devices of Satan and other
adversaries of the truth ;

5. By showing the entire symmetry and
self-consistency of the Truth itself.

Where real contradiction exists. Error must
be present. Either the error lies in what we
mistake for the truths as a mirage is mistaken
for a reality ; or the error lies in our own
organs of visio7i\ our eye, being diseased, sees
double where the object is single. A true be-
liever runs no risk in calmly and resolutely
examining into any alleged difficulty or dis-
crepancy in the Bible. If one encounters a
supposed ghost on a dark night, the best way is

A WORD OF PREFACE. V

to walk up to it, and look it squarely in the
face. To flee from a supposed apparition
may leave a lingering doubt whether the
ghostly illusion were a reality or not : a bold
touch would have dispelled both the illusion
and the doubt. To wait patiently and to
search diligently is to find even the most
formidable difficulties vanish, and to see the
error to be one of our own ignorance or mis-
apprehension. Nay, it often happens that
stumbling stones become stepping stones, and
hindrances are changed to helps.

Arthur T. Pierson.

2320 Spruce St, Philadelphia Pa.
October, 1890.

CONTENTS.

PART I.
The Difficulties Stated—The Causes of Dis-
crepancies.

PART II.
General Suggestions — The Laws of Inter-
pretation, ETC.

PART 111.
The Uses of Discrepancies — Conclusion.

STUMBLING STONES REMOVED
FROM THE WORD OF GOD.

PART I.

THE DIFFICULTIES STATED THE CAUSES

OF DISCREPANCIES.

The so-called ' discrepancies' of Holy
Scripture may be classified as follows :

First, verbal, or such as concern the
words or letters of Scripture ;

Secondly, historical, or such as concern
the names of persons and places, num-
bers, dates, and historical statements or
events ;

Thirdly, moral, or such as concern
ethical precepts and principles, duties
and relations ; and,

Fourthly, doct7'inal, or such as concern
the direct doctrinal teaching of the word,
especially as to the higher class of spirit-

8 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

ual truths. The bibliography of this
subject is quite extensive. Some fifty or
more volumes have been published,
which treat, more or less exclusively, this
theme, one of which, by Mr. Haley,
covers over five hundred pages. There
are probably not less than five hundred
other works which contain extended ref-
erence to these discrepancies ; so that, in
the effort to condense what needs to be
written upon such a subject into a very
brief compass, we find no little additional
difficulty. But, as a bulky treatise
would defeat our object, we shall simply
group all the ' discrepancies ' together,
and offer general suggestions and princi-
ples, covering various particulars in each
class.

We begin, very naturally, by inquiring
whence these appareiit discrepancies come.
What Is their sotcrce?

The first general class are those which
come from variations in the mere letter
of Scripture.

I. Errors in Transcription.

In the absence of the printing press all

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 9

copies of the Word of God were of
course the product of the manual labor
of scribes. Prof. Norton estimates that,
by the end of the second century, there
were sixty thousand manuscripts of the
Gospel in existence ; and, including man-
uscripts of the Old Testament, millions of
copies of God's Word have doubtless
been made in the course of the ages.
From seven hundred to one thousand
Greek manuscripts are now extant, of
which fifty are one thousand years old,
and some few are one thousand five hun-
dred years old, whereas the oldest exist-
ing classic manuscript is not nine hun-
dred. Of course the original manuscripts
of the Bible have all disappeared, and
God meant that they should, to save us
from a similar idolatry to that which
lifted the Brazen Serpent and Gideon's
Ephod to divine honors.

In producing exact copies, perfect
accuracy would be impossible without a
perpetual miracle of divine supervision,
as great as that of original Inspiration.
Even in printed books it is found imprac-

lO STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

ticable to secure entire freedom from
errors ; even when large rewards have
been offered for their detection, new ones
have been found after the two hun-
dredth reading. How much more diffi-
cult to secure absolute accuracy when the
first form is also the final form and there
is no chance to correct " proof !"

In manual transcriptions mistakes are
therefore inevitable.

1. Hebrew letters often closely resemble
each other.

There are at least eight pairs of letters, so
nearly alike as to be constantly mistaken for
each other, like the English b and d, c and e,
f and old-fashioned s, (f) 1 and t. Old manu-
scripts became faded and blurred, and this in-
creased the liability of such errors, and mis-
takes in names and figures easily arose in this
way, where the context and general sense fur-
nished no guide.

2. It is probable that, both in the He-
brew and Greek manuscripts, letters were
anciently used for numerals.

Warrington thinks that the letters of the al
phabet, taken in their order, represented nu-

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. I I

merical values, as follows, units, tens and
hundreds up to 400; i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 200, 300, 400 ;
that the five terminal letters supplied the num-
bers representing the even hundreds, from 500
to 900 inclusive ; and that the thousands were
represented by affixing marks or points to
those representing units, etc.

Two sorts of mistakes might easily creep in ;
one letter might be mistaken for another of
different value ; or discrepancies might be in-
troduced where the attempt was made to sub-
stitute the full word for the letter. There is
scarcely a case in which copyists are believed
to have made any intentional change in the
original text. In one case, where the name
Manasseh appears instead of Moses, some have
thought that some officious scribe made the
substitution to save the disgrace, to the great
Jewish Lawgiver, of recording the idolatry of
his grandson (Judges xviii. 30).

II. Errors in PuncHiation.

In the original manuscripts there were
probably no punctuation marks. In fact
some manuscripts were ctcrsive, i. e. the
words were run together with no space be-
tween them. The translators have intro-
duced punctuation marks, to make the

12 yrUMBLING STONES REMOVED

sense obvious ; and, for convenience,
division into chapters and verses. Of
course all this belongs to the human, un-
inspired, and therefore fallible element
in the Modern Bible, and no objections,
drawn from punctuation marks, or these
arbitrary divisions, really lie against the
Inspired Word of God, itself.

There are not a few instances in which this
punctuation may have introduced at least a
very doubtful sense or construction. A few
examples may be given.

John xii. 27. " What shall I say ? Father,
save me from this hour: but for this cause
came I unto this hour." By substituting an
interrogation point for the colon, after the
word ' hour,' the sense is made much more
clear.

Luke xiii. 24, 25. Omitting the period after
the word * able,' or substituting a comma, we
are taught that the risk lies in seeking to enter
when it is too late. Compare Matthew xxv.

I-IO.

Psalm cix. 6 to 19 inclusive. If these verses
are put in quotation marks, as the * words
of hatred,' which, 'with a lying tongue,' the
* adversaries ' of David 'speak against him,*
this Psalm is made no longer his imprecation

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 1 3

of curses on their heads, but his appeal to God
in reply to their maledictions. Then the sud-
den change from the plural to the singular
number, in verse 6 and following, is explained,
and both the introductory and closing verses
acquire a new and beautiful significance. Com-
pare especially verses 28 to 31 with 1-3.

Examples of at least doubtful division, where
the sense is very seriously interrupted or ob-
scured, might be multiplied. A few will suf-
fice.

I Corinthians xii. 31. There should here be
no division of chapters. The '' more excellent
way," which Paul shows, is the cultivation of
Love; and a colon after the word 'way,'
should be the only interruption to the sense.
To introduce a new chapter breaks all con-
tinuity.

The connection between Chapters II. and
III. of the Epistle to the Ephesians is similarly
intimate ; and the argument is perfect only as
the break is avoided. '' For this cause " refers
back to the truth set forth in the previous
Chapter. Compare also Hebrews iii. 14. The
word ' therefore,' at the beginning of the fourth
Chapter, depends tipon the sentiment immedi-
ately preceding. So xi., xii.

III. Errors in Amplificatio7i.

As translators have supplied punctua-

14 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

tion points, so they have supplied words
and phrases, to complete the sense or
make the meaning obvious. As is well
known, these supplied words are always
indicated by the use of italics. The ignor-
ant reader sometimes supposes that itali-
cized words represent the emphatic words,
and is perhaps betrayed into the error of
the simple minded ' Dunkerd' preacher,
who gravely read i Kings xiii. 27, thus:
*' And he spake unto his sons, saying,
Saddle me the ass. And they saddled
him I "

As to these italicized words, it has
been seriously questioned whether they
are, in any case, needful, helpful ox jttsti-
fiable. Where the original demands or
implies them, they need not be italicized,
since they are not really 'supplied'
words ; where the original does not so
justify them, to introduce them may
sometimes be to introdiice 7iotions foreign
to the mcaniiig of the Word and the mind
of the Spirit ; and may therefore be un-
warrantable tampering with the Inspired
Word of God. At the very least, we

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. I 5

must remember that all italicised words
belong, like punctuation points and chap-
ter-and-verse divisions, to the fallible ele-
ment, and therefore can never become
the basis of objection to anything but
the work of translators.

We append a few examples of supplied
words. By reading the passages and omitting
these itaHcized phrases, another meaning will
often at once appear, and also a much clearer
sense. In the examples given we omit the
suppHed words.

Matthew xx. 23. "■ But to sit on my right
hand and on my left is not mine to give, but
for whom it is prepared of my Father."
So read, Christ does not limit his own
power to give the chief places, save that it
must be exercised in union with the
Father.

John iii. 34. '' For God giveth not the
Spirit by measure " — doling out the supply as
if his resources were limited.

John viii. 6. '* But Jesus stooped down,
and with his finger wrote on the ground." In
Syria and the East, to this day, writing with
the finger in the sand is a common method of
teaching, as with us the slate and blackboard
are used. It introduces a possiby unwar-

1 6 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

ranted conception, to add, *' as though he heard
them notr

James i. 25. ''Whoso looketh into the per-
fect law of liberty and continueth." The
figure is that of a mirror, and the word ' con-
tinucth ' may refer to the looking. We must
not simply glafice but gaze at ourselves as seen
in that law, continue looking so that the im-
pression may be permanent.

Psalm xxii. i, 3, u, etc. Bishop Alexander
calls this prophetic poem of the Crucified, a
'Psalm OV Sobs.' It represents the vicarious
sufferer as in dying agonies, able only to artic-
ulate a few words at a time : and the frag-
mentary character of the utterances is one of
the most remarkable features of the plaint.
To supply words, and so make every sentence
complete, interferes with the impression which
the Spirit would convey. How much more
pathetically majestic if translated literally !

" My God ! My God !
Why hast Thou forsaken me !
Far from helping me ! —
Words of my roaring ! " —
etc.

We have no space for multiplying examples;
but refer the reader to a few additional cases

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 17

where the omission of the supph'ed words will
suggest a new and often higher sense.

Deut. xxxii. 35.

Psalm X. 4 ; xiv. i ; 1. 8 ; li. 12.

Proverbs xxvii. 19.

Isaiah xxvi. 19.

Malachi iii. 10. '' Until failure of enough,"
1. e. until the supply fails !

Mark xvi. 20.

John XX. II.

Hebrews xi. 21.

2 Peter iii. 17.

IV. Difficulties hicidentto Translation.

In all human language necessary im-
perfection inheres ; and yet the Holy
Spirit was compelled either to invent a
new nomenclature which would have been
unintelligible to man, or else to use that
imperfect medium with which he is famil-
iar. So far as language is merely the
mould of thought, or thought is the mould
of language, the two must correspond :
and we shall find things, divine and spirit-
ual, inadequately conveyed by human
words, and in some cases absolutely no
word will be found fit to be the vehicle or
mould of a divine conception.

1 8 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

From this general source proceed a
great variety of infelicities, inaccuracies,
and even apparent contradictions, that
are purely linguistic and verbal.

1. Material terms are necessarily em-
ployed to express immaterial things : the
spiritual is cramped and confined by the
carnal wrappings.

The word ' spirit ' from spiro, I breathe,
means, in its Hebrew and Greek equivalents,
hterally wind or breath. To infer that the
spirit of man or of God is simply breath, would
be to limit a divine conception by the narrow lit-
eralism of the best word that human language
can furnish to convey the thought.

When Jewish writers speak of the " tongue
of events," meaning thereby God's acts trans-
lated into the language of historical occurrences,
no one misunderstands the phrase.

2. Figurative terms are also necessarily
employed, but must not be literally con-
strued.

The Oriental habit of mind is peculiarly
luxuriant and imaginative. Eastern idioms
abound in bold and striking metaphors and
even hyperbole. ** To construct dogmas out

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. IQ

of such materials, would be like attempting to
build a palace out of sunbeams and rainbows."
As Prof. Park says, there is manifestly a wide
gap between oriental minstrelsy and occiden-
tal logic.

3. Much language, applied to God, is
really applicable only to man, is Anthro-
povioj'p/nc, and Aiithropopathic, i. e. ,
drawn from the human form and passions.

When we read of the ' Fingers of God,' with
which He wrote on the Tables of Stone ; the
'Feet of God,' which rest on the earth as His
footstool; the 'Eyes' and 'Eyelids of God,'
which ' behold ' and ' try ' the children of men ;
of the ' Nostrils of God,' into which the sweet
incense of worship ascends, etc. , these terms
are Anthropomorphic and must be so under-
stood.

Isa. iii. 13. The Lord standeth up to
plead.

Joel iii. 12. There will I sit to judge all
the heathen.

It would seem incredible that any one, even
a caviller, could call such statements 'dis-
crepancies.' This is an example of the uncan-
dor and unfairness of much so-called * criticism.'
Such language is simply drawn from the habits
of Oriental courts, where advocates stand up

20 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

to plcad^ and judges sit doivji to pronounce
sentence. God is likewise said to ** Come
down," when He interposes in human affairs,
which belong to a subordinate sphere : and
such terms as '* ascend " and "■ descend " are
often used with reference to the comparative
elevation of the subjects and objects to which
the attention is turned.

Most words are tropes, concealing a figure.
Contradictions frequently disappear, as soon
as we cease to insist on an absurd literalism.

Invisible things may be clearly seeji ;
(Rom. i. 20) and we may look at what is
unsee7i. (2 Cor. iv. 18.)

4. Metaphors are often mixedy because
one figure does not suffice to express the
full meaning.

Ps. xviii. I, 2. David calls the Lord,
his " strength, rock, fortress, deliverer, buckler,
horn and high tower." Here are at least
seven different metaphors. The inconsistency
is rhetorical but not real : in fact there is
sublimity in the very mixture. Peter says
" stablish, strengthen, settle you," and Paul
says, '' rooted and grounded in love." One
expression being inadequate, the writer leaps
at once to another, that the combination may
convey what neither would alone.

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 21

5. Lang7iagc of Appearance is close akin
to figurative terms, and is always allow-
able.

When the sun is represented as ' rising ' or
'setting;' or the dew as 'distilling' and 'de-
scending from heaven,' we are not warranted
either in construing these terms literally, or in
objecting to them because of scientific inac-
curacy. In this scientific age we use such
terms while conceding their inexactness, be-
cause they describe appearances and belong to
the popular idiom.

6. Various renderings of the same
original word, lead to inevitable confu-
sion.

John XV. 4, 9, II, one Greek word (/ifvw) is
variously translated, abide, remain, continue,
etc.

I Cor. ii. 15, the same Greek word avaKfuvErat
is translated discern, and judge.

7. Words are sometimes invested by
the reader with a wrong se?ise.

*^ God \s angry with the wicked." Ps. vii.
II.

He is the ** A^'Oigrr " of evil, i Thess. iv. 6.

Wrath is ascribed even to the " Lamb."
Rev. vi. 16.

22 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

These and similar terms are to be used and
understood in a higher sense than the ordinary
one. Anger is not, in itself, a sin : in fact,
without holy indignation, there is no perfectly
holy character. The verbs, * avenge * and
^ revenge^' and the corresponding nouns, ' 7'^«-
gemice and * revenge^' mean different things : the
former verb and noun refer to a public gov-
ernmental, judicial act, which is necessary to
the upholding of law ; [Jer. li. 56J while
' revenge ' refers generally to a private, personal
act of retaliation. There is a manifest and
broad distinction between a ruler calmly re-
quiting or recompensing evil, for public good,
and an injured party passionately returning evil
for evil, for private gratification. God is
never vindictive but always vindicative, i. e.
He vindicates law. '' Odit errores, amat er-
rantesT When wrath is ascribed to Him, we
are to remember it is holy wrath and so a part
of His infinite perfections. A magnetic needle
has polarity, and by the same law it attracts
and repels at the same pole. Benevolence is
an attribute whose two poles are. Love and
Wrath. By the same principle, God both loves
holiness and hates sin ; and, because He is
capable of holy complacence toward the good,
must be capable of holy repulsion toward evil.

The word, ' hate ' is often used of a lesser
love. Compare Rom. ix. 13. Luke xiv. 26.

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 23

*' God Jiardoicd Pharaoh's heart." Exod.
ix. 12. This implies in God no compHcity
with evil. He withdrew softening influences
which were abused. Nay more : the same
sun melts the wax, and bakes and cakes the
clay; and so the same influences which soften
and subdue the obedient, harden the rebellious.
Pharaoh's wilfulness naturally produced the
same effect as did God's judicial infliction.
Compare Exod. viii. 15, 32.

In the narrative about David and the Am-
monites, etc., in 2 Sam. xii. 31, it is said
he '^ put them imdcr saws, harrows, axes," and
" made them pass tlirough the brick-kiln."
Sceptics unwarrantably construe this subjection
oftJie people to certain forms of labor ^ as though
it were meant that David cut them in pieces or
burned them alive. In i Chron. xx. 3, the
word " cut,'' is probably a mistake. A Hebrew
word, as much like the other as ' cut ' is like
'put,' and even more like it, is accidentally mis-
taken for it. {Vayyasdr for vayyasem^

Paul says, "concerning virgins I have no
commandment of the Lord.'' I Cor. vii. 25.
Are we to understand him as disclaiming
inspired guidance in the case? or does he
simply mean that whereas, in counsels to the
married, he has referred them to an express re-
corded commandment of the Lord, Mai. ii.
14-16, Matt. xix. 6, 9 ; in this case there is

24 STUMBLING STONES Kli MOVED

no such ivriitoi coniinandDioit to Avliich to
appeal? Compare i Cor. vii. 6, lo. When
he says, '* I think also that I have the Spirit of
God," I Cor. vii. 40, it might be rendered, I
think that I also have the Spirit (^ayw), i. e. as
well as others who claim to be your teachers,
and are not inspired apostles.* So understood,
instead of disclaiming inspiration, he rather
affirms with peculiar emphasis the apostolic
warrant for his instruction.

The Israelites borrowed of the Egyptians,
Exod. xii. 35. *' Borrowed " probably means
* demanded,' as the price of departure.

" The bears tare forty and two of them,"
2 Kings ii. 24.

It is not said that they killed 2,\\y of them.

Abraham was commanded to ''offer'' Isaac
for a burnt offering. Gen. xxii. 2.

It is not said, anywhere, that God com-
manded him to slay his son, though the father
so interpreted it. God intended that he should
prese7it Isaac as an offering, and that is what he
did. It is probably part of the inspired per-
fection of the Scriptures that words are used
with such discrimination ; and it is therefore
the duty of every reader to note exactly what
is saidj lest he carelessly introduce a conception,
foreign to the real narrative.

*J. H. Brookes, D. D.

FROM rilE WORD OF GOD. 2$

VI. Errors of Interpretation.

Where no fault can reasonably be found
with either the original or the translation, the
reader s viisappreJiension may cause difficulty.
We must therefore learn to interpret the
language of the Bible intelligently and cor-
rectly. Several facts arc to be borne in mind.

1. Words often cJiange vieaning, and
arc liable to be misunderstood.

* Prevent ' means to go before, or anticipate.

1 Thess. iv. 15.

* Let ' means not to let, i. e. to hinder.

2 Thcss. ii. 7.

* Conversation ' means course of life. Heb.
xiii. 5.

2. The same worei is used in different
seiises.

Compare Exod. xxxi. 17, with Isa. xl. 28.
Though God " fainteth not neither is weary,"
yet "He rested and was refreshed." 'Rest'
sometimes means repose after fatiguing labor,
or, as in this case, cessation from activity, the
arresting of work.

Adam was said to ' hide,' and Jonah to
'Jlee,' from 'the Presence of the Lord.* Yet
wc are taught that to flee or to hide from His

26 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

presence is impossible. Ps. cxxxix. 7. There
is an omni-prcscnce of God which equally per-
vades all space ; but there is a manifested Pres-
ence, such as, in the Garden of Eden or in
the Sanctuary of old, was often visible and
audible. We are told that God " was not in
the wind," the '' earthquake " or the ''fire;"
but the meaning is that He was not specially
and personally manifested in these forms, as
He was in the *' still small voice " which fol-
lowed them. I Kings xix. 11, 12.

The word '^ covet'' is used in Exod. xx. 17,
of unlawful desire after that which is another's ;
in I Cor. xii. 31, of a holy yearning to possess
that which will benefit another.

*' Christ was made sin for us," though He
"knew no sin," 2 Cor. v. 21, i. e. He was
made a sin-offering, accounted judicially as a
sinner.

'' Tempt'' may mean to put to proof, to
test : or to entice to sin. Compare Gen. xxii.
I, Deut. vi. 16, and Jas. i. 13.

^^ Cleave" may mean, to cling to, or to part
from, another. Rom. xii. 9. Zech. xiv. 4.

^^ Devoted" means consecrated to holy uses,
or, sometimes, doomed, to destruction.

The verb '^ have" is used in Matt. xiii. 12,
both of nominal and of real possession. Mr.
Haley cites a couplet from Drydcn's Jiivcfial,
in illustration of a like usage :

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 2/

"Tis true poor Codrus nothing had, to boast;
And yet poor Codrus all that nothing lost."

To ''seek early'' may also mean to seek
earnestly. Compare Prov. i. 28, viii. 17.

In one case the earnestness of the pious
youth, and in the other of the despairing and
hardened sinner, is referred to: a holy longing
after God's favor is contrasted with a desperate
effort to evade sin's penalty and God's judg-
ment.

The word "■ eviV may mean perverse, in-
iquitous, or merely adverse, calamitous.

''Jealousy''' sometimes represents "the rage
of man " a mean, malicious suspicion ; and,
again, a holy affection which by its nature
admits no rivalry. God is said to be "jealous "
because He can allow no other object to share
His people's devotion, without sanctioning
idolatry.

The phrase "the righteousness of saints"
sometimes seems to refer to justification ; at
other times to sanctification ; and at others to
resurrection life. It is of great importance
that we learn to discriminate between these
three. Justification is a divine act, imputing
to us a righteousness complete but ?iot inherent,
Sanctification is a divine work, imparting to us
a righteousness inherent but not complete. Res-
urrection life implies a finished work, when

28 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

our righteousness is both inherent and com-
plete.

3. Words are used both in an absolute,
and in a relative sense.

God who" changes not," is said to ''repent."
There is no contradiction. It is because He
absokitely changes not, that He relatively
changes. If a movable body revolves about
a fixed object, their relative positions are con-
stantly changing : if both were moving, their
relative positions might remain the same.
When a man who has been turned from God
turns toward Him, God is in effect turned also
toward the man, though in fact there has been
in God Himself no change. The attitude of the
sinner relatively affects the attitude of God.
We say, " the sun shines " or *' docs not shine,"
when in fact it always shines ; but the position
of the earth, or the interposition of the clouds,
intercepts its rays.

Christ says '* my Father is greater than I ; "
yet He also afifirms " I and my Father are
one ; " and Paul claims for Him such equality
with God as that the claim implies no robbery
of God. Compare Jno. xiv. 28, Phil. ii. 5, 6.
In one case, Christ speaks of His relative
position as a Son^ or as ATessiah, the Sent one :
in the other His absolute, essential equality is

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 2g

referred to, as one member of a firm, where all
members are equal in the property invested
and the rights implied, might still disclaim all
authority in a certain department of the busi-
ness, which by mutual agreement is committed
to another partner.

4. Words are used sometimes of the
uitcnty and again of the effect, of an act or
course.

** In so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire
on his head." Rom. xii. 20. Here not the
design, but the resiilty of kindness to an enemy
is indicated. The silversmith does not per-
fectly melt the metal until, in addition to the
fire beneath the crucible, he heaps the hot
coals on the top of the silver. When we heap
kindness on an enemy's head, we have him
between two fires : the conscience of the man
accuses him, and our tenderness combines with
that to melt him.

'* I came not to send peace but a sword."
Matt. X. 34, 36 ; i. e. though Christ's desire and
design are to give peace, the effect of his com-
ing is to make division and separation between
those who serve God and those who serve Him
not. We must discriminate between the object
and the effect of His mission.

When it is said that, at Nazareth, '' He coiitd

30 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

do no mighty work " (Meirk vi. 5), it is no con-
tradiction of the fact that " All Power" is his.
Matt, xxviii. 18. He chooses to be limited, in
His beneficent activity, by human unbelief. He
could do mighty works among those Naza-
renes, only by disregarding the bounds which
He had wisely adopted for moral ends.

Under this same subdivision we may include
promises which are in some cases absolute, and
in others conditional.

VI. Freedom in the Use of Names,

1. Multiplicity of names for the same
person

Peter is also called Simon, Cephas, Simon
Bar-Jona, Simeon, Simon Peter, Simon son of
Jonas. Joseph is also called Barsabas and
Justus. Jacob is also Israel. Edom is Esau,
Gideon is Jerubbaal. Saul is Paul.

2. Names of /'^r.f(?;2i' are changed ; and
names of persons and places are often
interchanged. E. g., Edom.

In the deficiency of other methods of re-
cording and transmitting history, individual
men and women became themselves marks,
memorials or monuments of crises or turning
points, or new departures.

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 3 1

Thus Abram's name was changed to Abra-
ham, and Sarai's to Sarah. Gen. xvii. 5, 15.

Jacob's name was changed for a similar
reason to Israel. Gen. xxxii. 28.

Neander's name before conversion was
David iNIendel. The change marks his regen-
eration— the ' new-man.'

VII. In luriting number s^ oriental
usage was often singular.

1. In the expression of aggregates.

Nordheimer says : Hebrew and Arabic al-
low peculiar latitude in the use and expression
of numbers. Both languages allow one to
write units, tens, hundreds, thousands, in suc-
cession or in reverse order. Much obscurity
at times occurs, as if one should write, " five
and twenty and two hundred and ten thou-
sand." This might be understood to mean an
aggregate number as small as 10, 225, or as
large as 210, 025.

2. Round numbers were used for con-
venience, or in symbolism. E. g., a
week, called eight days. J no. xx. 26.

VIII. Difference of dates is sometimes
the source of apparent discrepancy or
discordance.

32 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

The disagreeing statements refer to different
periods. What was once true ceases to be at
a subsequent time.

Compare Gen. i. 31, and Rom. viii. 22.
When God first made all things, he pronounced
everything " very good." After sin's blight
and curse came upon it, the whole creation
groaned and travailed in pain together.

IX. Different modes of reckoning.

1. The civil and sacred years of the
Hebrews differed.

Abib, the first month of the sacred year, was
the seventh month of the civil y^2J. ^Compare
the " old style " and the ''new style," eleven
days apart.

2. Fractio7ial days and years were
reckoned as whole ones.

With the Rabbins, the very first day of a
year sometimes stood for the whole year. —
Lightfoot. Parts of a day were reckoned for
the whole : e. g. , Christ's '* three days" in the
grave, though He appears to have been in the
sepulchre a part of the sixth, the whole of the
seventh and a part of the eighth.

X. History in Bible usage is often
made stibordinaie to prophecy a7id sym-

FROM TIIE WORD OF GOD.

33

boll's VI. In. other words the historical
accuracy is of less account than the pro-
phetical or symbolical or ethical teaching
which the history expresses and embodies.

E. g., Israel's history, as a nation, is not
counted on the strict historical scale, but on the
prophetic. When God's ancient people re-
lapsed into idolatry and virtual apostasy, and
were given over into captivity, their normal
and prophetic history stopped : they were not
reckoned as having any history. Only when
such a principle is understood and applied to
the record, can we make out the biblical com-
putations of time, as applied to this elect
nation.

We notice various cycles of 490 years, or
ten Jubilees, which seem to constitute a sort
of unit ov measurement in the Old Testament.
The 480 years of i Kings vi. i, between Israel's
going forth and Solomon's temple building, do
not count, as a recent writer has observed,
the seven periods of servitude. The actual
time is 611 years. Deducting for servi-
tude 131 years, we have 480. Then add, for
building and furnishing the temple, 10 years,
and we have 490.

From that period to the return from Babylon,
in the time of Nehemiah, is 560 years. Deduct

34 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

for captivity, Jo years, and we have again
490.

So the 490 years in the seventy Hcptades
of Dan. ix. cannot be made out accurately,
unless we omit the periods of interrupted
fellowship with God and disobedience to His
will. In fact the crucifixion of Christ appears
to have interrupted the last "week," and at least
half of it seems to be the prophetical '' three
and a half years," ''forty and two months," or
1260 days of the Apocalypse.

XI. One event or tricth or subject has
differeiit sides SiVid aspects. We must get
the point of view, and even the plane of
thought, occupied by the sacred writer or
speaker.

I. Truth is many-sided.

Every truth or fact has at least two faces.
To look at it from one direction or side, only,
gives us only a half truth, which, if we consider
it the whole, is a half error. Apposite truths
are not opposites. There is no antagonism
between them, but rather complementism :
they are the hemispheres which together com-
plete the sphere.

Hence truths that at first appear to conflict
may have often the highest harmony and be
necessary to each other.

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 35

Man is at the same time mortal and immor-
tal. He may be buried, and yet it is equally
true that he cannot be : or, as Socrates said,
** You may luiry vie if you can catcJi vic^

2. Character has complex relations.

Christ is at once a lion and a lamb, Rev. v.
5, 6 ; a priest and victim, Heb. viii. i, ix. 26-28 ;
a shepherd and sheep, Jno. x. 11, Acts. viii. 32 ;
the door to the fold and the pastor to the flock,
Jno. X. 7. II.

3. Different experiences and conditions
may pertain to the same person., at the
same time.

Christ's peace was the perfect peace of God,
even while he sweat as it were great drops of
blood.

Dr. Payson in dying was both in intensest
agony and intensest ecstasy.

4. The same siibjcct may be treated
from different points of approach and
survey, for different ends.

Thus Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, each
writing for a different class of readers, — Jews
Romans, Greeks, and believers in general, will
each emphasize a different aspect of the com-
plex character of Jesus.

36 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

Matthew lays stress on Him as Messiah —
King of the Jews. Mark lays stress on Him
as mighty God, miracle worker. Luke lays
stress on Him as the Son of man. John lays
stress on Him as the Son of God. Compare
the books of Kings and Chronicles ; one being
the annals of the Kingdom, the other the
history of the Hierarchy.

For similar reasons, some authors may fol-
low the chronological^ while others follow the
logical, order; others, without regard to his-
torical connection or sequence, may group
ethical teachings together.

5. Consequently, to avoid partial and
incomplete views, we must compare scrip-
ture with scriphtre until each half truth
finds its complementary half.

The parable of the "Pounds" and of the
'* Talents " must be taken together. Thus
combined they present the whole law of God's
administration of gifts. Where gifts are equal,
but unequally improved, the rewards are un-
qual : where gifts are unequal, but equally
improved, the rewards are equal. Compare
Luke xix.. Matt. xxv.

In Luke xv., we have not three parables,
but one parable with three forms of presenta-
tion. The first and second emphasize God's

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 37

part in recovering the lost sinner ; the third
brings to the front mans part both in wander-
ing and return.

Paul emphasizes/^r?///; / James, works. There
is no conflict. Paul was rebuking Pharisaic
dependence on self-righteous works. James
was contending against antinomian dependence
on a mere creed. James probably uses the
word " justify " in the sense of manifesting or
proving. Thus faith justifies the soul, works
justify the faith.

XII. Condensation of narratives ac-
counts for some incongruities.

1. For the sake of brevity, or because
a specific purpose, which is controlling,
demands only the salient points of a
narrative, a few characteristic features
are presented and the account is fragmen-
tary. Were all the missing links fur-
nished, no real difficulty would remain.

2. The Imagination or hasty inference
of critics may often supply an incongru-
ous link where God has left an unfilled
vacancy.

Some professedly religious teachers have
shocked the sensibilities of all true and rever-
ent believers by using such phrases as the

38 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

" errors," '' mistakes " and even '' immoralities "
of scripture.

For example, Exod. xxi. 24, " An eye for an
eye," etc. , is adduced as a scriptural sanction,
justifying private revenge and retaliation of
injuries. But who is authorized to say that
this authorizes the exaction of private and
personal vengeance ? May it not be the law
by which the judges were guided in the judi-
cial mfliction of penalty! The brief narrative
leaves many gaps to be supplied. In Patri-
archal times, with imperfect legislation and
government, such penalties may have been the
most salutary preventives of acts of violence,
and especially of maiming.

XIII. Differ^ent events or persons may he
conf^ised on account of similar feahires.

On a larger or smaller scale, history is con-
stantly repeating itself. Abram twice equiv-
ocated concerning Sarah ; Isaac imitated his
father's example, in the case of Rebekah. David
twice and in very similar circumstances spared
Saul's life, etc.

There were, in modern times, two Jonathan
Edwards, father and son. Both were grand-
sons of clergymen and, themselves, clergymen.
Both were pious and precocious youths, fa-
mous scholars, and tutors for equal periods in

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 39

their respective colleges. Both succeeded, in
their respective charges, their maternal grand-
fathers, were dismissed on account of peculiar
religious opinions ; were again settled over con-
gregations singularly attached to them, and
employed leisure hours in favorite studies, and
in preparation, for publication, of works of
value. Both left their parishes for college
presidencies, and died shortly after inaugura-
tion, with but one year's difference in their
respective ages, one being fifty-six, the other
fifty-seven; and both, on the first sabbath of the
fatal year, preached from the same text, '' This
year thou shalt surely die." (Haley, p. 27).

Modern critics who seek to prove that simi-
lar biblical narratives are a confusion of his-
torical facts, and refer to the same person or
event, can in no case adduce by comparison of
scriptural accounts any parallel to the coinci-
dent features of these two remarkably similar
lives and careers. And were the methods of
the *' Higher Criticism " adopted in this case,
some may yet arise who will seek to prove
that there was after all but one Jonathan
Edwards !

XIV. Special laws or principles apply
to the Interpretation of Prophecy.

Prophecy is the langzcage of the fnture.

40 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

It is a well known fact that as we look
ahead, in a direct line, certain optical
illusions are the result :

First, Perspective : objects at different
distances are seen in one limited field of
vision and lying within the same narrow
arc.

Secondly, Fore short eating : objects, far
separated from us and from each other,
appear near and closely related ; what is
stretched out over vast length, is seen
shortened — hence the term '' foreshorten-
ing," to express the apparent shortening
from the fore-view. Only by experience
does the mind learn to detect and cor-
rect the errors of the eye. Similar
illusions pertain to the careless reading
of prophecy.

I. In prophecy we often see two or
more events of a similar character out-
lined by a common profile. One outline
properly portrays two events, one on
a smaller, and the other on a larger scale ;
one nearer, the other more remote.

E. g., Matt. xxiv. where the destruction of
Jerusalem is the type of the End of the Age,

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 41

and prophecies concerning both are closely
intertwined because one general profile answers
for both.

2. Events may appear in a common
field of vision, all of which are future,
which and, as they occur, will be seen to
be marked by many distinct and distin-
o-uishinor features.

o o

3. Future events, far separated in
point of time, may be so mingled on the
horizon of prophecy, as to appear, like
mountains in a range, near to each other.

4. History may be communicated pro-
phetically, i. e. by a backward instead of
a forward vision.

Hugh Miller believed that the six days of
creation were revealed to Moses after some
such manner, as a series of spectacular or
dramatic scenes, to be interpreted after the
manner of prophecy.

XV. There Is a Progress in Rev elation y
from Genesis to the Apocalypse.

I. Things, veiled at first, even when
revealed in form, were afterward fully
unveiled as revelation became clearer.

42 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

This is the force of the word, "mystery,"
in the New Testament.

And here we may possibly find the key to
many so-called discrepancies.

E. g., quotations from the Old Testament
Hebrew or the Septuagint, or Greek Alexan-
drian version, are found in the New Testament
in a modified form. Sometimes the New
Testament writers, and even our Lord, have
been charged with " inaccuracies."

These verbal changes have been explained
by some, on the theory that the inspiration of
the Bible extends not to the '' words, but to the
concept," or thought ; or that New Testament
writers take liberties with scripture and modify
their quotations as modern authors might, in
citing passages from Shakespeare or Milton.
Such ' explanations ' are too loose and only
increase our embarrassment. We venture to
suggest a more reverent method of accounting
for such changes, viz. : that, where New Testa-
ament authors, in quoting, adopt the Sep-
tuagint version or change the exact language of
the original Hebrew, the Spirit guided them
so to do, in order to bring more clearly to view
the inspired meaning of sacred words.

Oftentimes a reason may be discovered for
such modification. In Heb. xi. 40, i Pet. i.
II, 12, etc., we are taught that Old Testament

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 43

writers themselves wrote much that they did
not themselves understand, and that was left
on record for after ages to interpret. May it
not be that, when New Testament writers are
led by the Spirit of God to quote these words,
they are also led in some cases to modify them
so as to throw upon the original quotation
the new light of a more perfect day ? Com-
pare Ps. xl. 7-8, with Heb. x. 5-10. Only
after our Lord became incarnate, could it be
understood Jiozu He came to do God's will " in
a body prepared."

Compare Isa. Ixi. i, 2, with Luke iv. 18, 19.
Mai. iii. I, with Mark i. 2, '' before Thy face."

2. There is likewise a progressive revela-
tion of 7norality.

The ethical standard of the gospel age is far
in advance of the Levitical : and the rule of
conduct must be graduated and estimated by
the fuller, clearer revelation of duty and of love.

" To him that knoweth to do good and doeth
it not, to him it is sin." Jas. iv. 17. " If ye
know these things, happy are ye if ye do
them." Jno. xiii. 17.

** The times of this ignorance God winked at."
Acts xvii. 30.

Such texts as these teach us that :

44 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

The object of knowledge is practice ; and
The scope of practice is knowledge.

The rule of duty is relative : '* To whom
much is given, of him will much be required ; "
more light demands better life.

Patriarchs, in practising polygamy, decep-
tion, human servitude ; in inflicting penalty
without legal process, etc., are not to be judged
by the New Testament principles not in their
day clearly revealed. Things but dimly seen if
at all at dawn, are clearly and boldly revealed
at noon-day.

3. There Is particularly a Progressive
Revelation as to mzsszo?is, or the duty of
believers to the unsaved about them.

It is true that the Bible is throughout a
missionary book. Missions are taught in the
Old Testament, but it is as in a mirror, darkly,
dimly, enigmatically, as truth is taught in
parables. Practically the old time saints did
not conceive of God's people as having an
aggressive mission to " make disciples of all
nations," nor did they conceive of other nations
as subjects of converting grace. To them, the
heathen were simply obstacles to the prosperity,
progress and even existence, of the one God-
fearing, elect people ; and even Peter the

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 45

apostle had to Icarn, by a thrice repeated vision
on the housetop, that the old exclusivcness
must be broken down before the inclusiveness
of the christian spirit.

Much of the so called ' vindictive spirit ' of
the ** Imprecatory " Psalms and prophetic utter-
ances should be interpreted as the breathing of
a holy jealousy for God, and a devout desire
to have all foes of the true faith destroyed, or
at least dispersed. Compare Ps. lix. ii.

46 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

PART II.

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. LAWS OF INTER-
PRETATION, ETC.

We now add some general remarks,
intended to be suggestive especially as
to the principles upon which biblical
studies should be pursued ; and we lay
down certain obvious laws of interpreta-
tion and canons of criticism.

I. The Bible is imperial in source,
divine in authority, original in contents,
and infallible in teaching. But it abounds
in mysterious truths, and is often para-
doxical iii state77ient.

Both the mystery and the paradox are
necessary features of the Word of God,
as the Book itself concedes. But it does
not follow that what we cannot solve
is insoluble or absurd. Deut. xxix. 29.
I Cor. ii. 1 1.

II. Apparent discrepancies are insepar-
able from the Word of God.

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 47

The iiatuial universe abounds in inscrutable
mysteries and seemini^ contradictions. Nature
is the arena of perpetual conflict. With all
the undeniable evidences of design, there are
occasional monstrosities ; and, side by side with
proofs of benevolence in the Creator, there
arc gigantic forms of disaster and destruc-
tion.

So in the Bible. The Trinity and Unity of
Godhead ; the Sovereignty of God and the
freedom of man ; the Divine Immutability
and the promises to praying souls ; — paradoxes
Hke these inhere in the nature of God and of
divine truth, and in the limited faculty and
knowledge of man.

That God ever began to be is impossible
and inconceivable ; yet that God had no
beginning is equally an inscrutable mystery,
for how did He ever reach the present stage of
His existence ! If an Eternity is already passed,
why may not an Eternal future reach its end ?
Whoever attempts to think on such themes
will soon learn that there are limits to human
reason. The idea of succession must not
enter into our conception of Eternity ; yet, of
duration without succession we cannot now
conceive.

III. We must settle the limits of In-
spiration.

48 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

Much of the Word of God consists of simply
an inspired narrative, in which all that Inspira-
tion covers or guarantees is the accuracy and
veracity of the record. This principle seems
to us so obvious, that, like an axiom, it needs
only a statement. One may give a most exact
and truthful account of what has taken place,
while disapproving the whole transaction
which is recorded. We must therefore in
every case notice the atithorship and authority
of all statements or sentiments found in the
sacred book.

''''Verbal Inspiration" is to some persons a
very obnoxious term, but when it is properly
understood we see no ground of objection to
it. It means only this, as we use it : that the
Inspiring Spirit guided, guarded and governed
the very latiguage in which God's thought was
expressed by holy men, who not only thought,
but ^^ spake diS they were moved by the Holy
Ghost." Who is there that holds every word of
the Bible to be in the same sense, inspired ?
When Satan says, *' Ye shall not surely die ; "
when Job and his three friends discuss the pro-
blem and philosophyof evil; when the blind man,
whose eyes were opened by Christ, argues with
the Pharisees ; when, in a word, the Bible
narrates human events or records human utter-
ances in which God is not represented either as
acting or speaking through man, inspiration

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 49

covers only the essential accuracy of the narra-
tive. But when God directs a course to be pur-
sued, or himself guides an utterance, the
sanction of His infallible authority is thus given.
We are not unduly jealous that '* degrees of
inspiration " be disallowed, provided that the
lowest degree of inspiration shall guard infal-
libility. For without this the Bible becomes
simply the best of books ; and loses all its divine
character as the final court of appeal — the Judge
which, when wit and wisdom fail, ends the
strife. Men crave, and will have, a final
arbiter.

We are more and more impressed with the
exactness and accuracy of Scripture. When,
for instance, Matthew records the direct ful-
filment of a specific prediction he says: "that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken by tJie pro-
phet;'' but when he refers to Christ's hailing from
Nazareth, he says: "that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the prophets,'' (plural)
" He shall be called a Nazarene " — for not in the
writings of any one prophet, but rather in the
drift of all prophecy is this forecast found.
And so, on the day of Pentecost, Peter does not
say, ** then \\d.<=> fid filled \X\dX which was spoken
by the prophet Joel ; " but, " this is that zvhich
was spoken " — for, although the outpouring of
Pentecost finds its only explanatio7i in Joel, the
fiilfilmeyit of that prophecy is yet to come,

50 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

when the Spirit, then poured out on all dis-
ciples, shall be " poured out upon -dW flcsJiy

Two Greek words arc translated '' speech,"
"discourse " or ''saying," (/oyoc, p^wa) yet only
07ie (/.oync) IS cvcr applied to Christ. If God
did not guide the words used, why were such
distinctions so carefully preserved ? And this
is but one case out of hundreds familiar to any
Bible student. There are '' concepts " of God
which no existing Greek words could express,
and a new nomenclature had to be created, or
new meanings attached to formerly existing
words. The New Testament must have a
glossary of its own ; for a classical dictionary
would not suffice. The more deeply we im-
merse ourselves in the study of the original
Scriptures, the more will the divine choice of
words impress us.

There are certainly five passages of Scripture
which may be cited as giving no uncertain
sound on the subject of ''Verbal Inspiration."
(Compare Heb. xii. 27, John x. 34-36, Gal.
iii. 16, Gal. iv. 9, and John viii. 58.) In the
first, the argument turns on the significance of
a ^xxi'^Q: phrase ; in the second, on the inviola-
bility of a single zvord] in the third, on the
use of a singular, instead of a plural niifuber ;
in the fourth, on the passive, instead of the
active, voice of a verb ; and in the fifth, on the
use of the present, instead of the past, tense of

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 5 1

the verb. Taking the five together, we are
taught that " the Scripture must not be
broken," so far as to change di phrase, a wordy
the nuiiihcr of a noun, or the voice or tense of a
verb. If that is not verbal inspiration — a
divine oversight extending not only to *' con-
cept," but to language — our '' scholarship " is
entirely at fault, and we are glad that it is !

Of course, no inspiration can be claimed, in
any such sense, for the various translations or
versions of the original Scriptures. Human
language is but a mirror or camera, before
which we place the Word of God, to catch its
reflection or image. The reflection or image
will be imperfect, just so far as the mirror, or
the camera, with its lenses and sensitive plates,
is imperfect ; yet for all practical purposes,
these translations and versions are as faithful
and accurate reproductions as the reflected
image and the photographic likeness, which
are but the '' counterfeit presentments " of the
man, and not the man himself ; and such trans-
lations do not seriously mislead any candid
reader.

IV. The Inspiration of Scripture must
certainly secure inerrancy and infallibility;
otherwise every man is at liberty to
determine for himself what he accepts or
rejects.

5 2 STUMBLING S TONES RE MO VED

Some who deny the inerrancy of Scripture,
concede that these '' errors are all in the cir-
cumstantials, and not in the essentials." But
who shall decide what are '^ essentials " and
what "circumstantials?" As a huge door
turns upon a very small hinge, stupendous
events hang upon what is seemingly insignifi-
cant. In God's universe there are no little
things. If we admit errors in the original
Scriptures, any modern Jehudi may, with his
penknife, cut out from the sacred scroll what-
ever he pleases ; and on the *' authority " of
his reason, and perhaps, of his " church," decide
that the exscinded part belongs not to " essen-
tials" but to ''circumstantials."

Current popular phraseology which is known
to be scientifically inaccurate, may find its
way into the Bible simply as a prevailing
idiom of speech. It is common to speak of the
" Battle of Bunker Hill," though every reader
of our history knows that Breed's Hill was the
actual scene of the battle. The phrases " ris-
ing and setting sun," " dew descending " from
heaven, etc., though found in the Word of
God, argue no essential error, because these
current forms of speech, — the " language of
appearances " — are universal even where known
to be scientifically inaccurate.

Each apparent error in the Word of God
must be accounted for by itself. Many errors

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 53

may be traced to sources already indicated, and
possibly some we may not now be able to
trace. But to admit the principle that the
"scriptures abound in errors, inaccuracies, mis-
takes and immoralities " is to destroy the value
of the Bible as the Word of God.

V. We must come to the study of the
Word of God with clear a7id discriminat-
ing minds.

1. Our tests must be sensible, rational
tests.

In Heb. vi. 18, we are told that it is " impossi-
ble for God to lie." Jkit again we are told in
Matt. xix. 26, that " with God all things are
possible." There is no contradiction. It is only
the silly caviller who cries out, " God cannot be
omnipotent, because He cannot lie." This is
no limitation of God's power; for power can be
tested only within the proper sphere and range
of power. The impossibility of God's lying is
not a physical but a moral impossibility, and
if the same impossibility existed in some
cavillers, such a dishonest objection and dis-
ingenuous argument would never have been
brought forward.

2. We must use sanctified common
sense.

54 STUMBLliVG STONES REMOVED

God knows all men, omniscicntly ; yet He
says of Abraham, '' Now, I know that thou
fearest God," etc., as though it were a new
discovery. Gen. xxii. 12. Here He means
that He had verified, by experiment, Abra-
ham's faithfulness ; it was an eventual know-
ing. So when God is said to have " remembered
Noah" (Gen. viii. i), it is not implied that
He had ever forgotten him ; but there is
indicated and recorded an active remembrance,
evinced in what He did to bring Noah again
out of the ark in safety.

3. In studying the Divine anger against
sin, we must beware of attributing to
God a merciless severity, because He
judicially destroys the ungodly.

Mercy to others sometimes makes severity
to offenders the only course compatible with
either justice or love to the universe at large.
Chief Justice Hale said, " When I am tempted
to be merciful to offenders, let me remember
that there is also a mercy due to my country."
Prince Eugene never pardoned certain of-
fenders, whom the Duke of Marlborough gen-
erally dealt with leniently. But it was found
on comparison of records that, with all his
laxity, the duke had been compelled to hang
many more such offenders than the prince,

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 5 5

because the duke's laxity encouraged such to
hope for immunity from penalty. We must
beware of ujircgencratc notions of benevolence,

4. We must learn to distingruish be-
tween what is liferal and what is spirit-
ual.

Many difificulties arise from confusion
here : on the one hand we may literalize
what is to be spiritually interpreted, or
we may spiritualize what is to be literally
understood.

For example, "Israel," " Zion," and "the
church" are often used by us as though they were
equivalent expressions. Paul draws in i Cor. x.
32, a distinction which, if always borne in
mind, will greatly assist in Bible study: " The
Jews, the Gentiles, and the Church of God "
are the three factors, never to be confounded
in the study of the Word.

When we are told to " call no man your
father upon earth" (INIatt. xxiii. 9), to under-
stand this literally would be to forbid any
child to address his father as such ! When we
are told, " swear not at all" (Matt. v. 34), lit-
erally construed, this would forbid an "oath for
confirmation" in a court of justice. Paul writes
(i Tim. vi. 16), that God " only hath immor-

56 STUMBLING STONES KE MOVED

tality ; " does he mean that the human soul,
the angels, and even the Lord Jesus, are not
immortal ? When, in Rom. xvi. 27, we read
of " God only wise," are we to infer that there
is no such thing as a wise man ?

Annihilationists argue from the phrase in
Ps. xxxvii. 9, 34, that " evil doers shall be cut
off'' (karath), that they are \x\XQ.x\y \.o pcrisJu
But this same word is used of Messiah — Dan.
ix. 26.

Cardinal Bellarmine argued from two texts,
John xxi. 16, "feed my sheep," and Acts x.
13, ''rise — kill and eat," that the successors of
Peter, the Roman Pontiffs, have a double
duty — to feed true believers and to kill heretics.
Why did he not go to the full length of his
literalism, and insist that the popes should
'' eat " the heretics they '' kill ? " (See Haley,
280).

V. We must discriminate between a
part and tJie zvJiole. A part neither in-
cludes nor excludes all the rest which
belongs to the complete form.

Take for example the Inscription on the
Cross. The full form was this :

''THIS IS JESUS OF NAZARETH,
THE KING OF THE JEWS."

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 57

Of these ten words, Mark records five, Luke
seven, Matthew and John, each, eight ; but no
two evangchsts give either the whole inscrip-
tion, or select the same words from the whole.
To assume that any one intends to give the
whole inscription will of course make har-
mony impossible ; but to assume that each
gives so much, and such a part, of the whole
as suits the precise object of his narrative,
relieves the various accounts from all antago-
nism or inaccuracy.

VI. Exceptions do not invalidate a ruhy
they rather prove it. This is a common
canon of all criticism, and has numerous
applications to the contents of Scripture.

VII. Hypotheses may be of great value y
in unlocking mysteries and obscurities,
and settling doubts.

It has long been an established law of all
scientific inquiry, that, wherever a supposition
meets all the facts of a given case and removes
all objections, it may be safely adopted as the
solution. Kepler sought to find the true theory
of the universe, and applied eighteen successive
hypotheses before he discovered the Harmonic
Laws. His final hypothesis answered all con-
ditions, like a perfectly fitting key in a lock,

58 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

and it was admitted as the true solution of
planetary orbits, etc. Upon the basis of a mere
supposition the old Ptolemaic theory of the
universe was finally overturned and the true
nature of planetary motion discovered.

In the study of Scripture truth, let us not be
driven from a satisfactory hypothesis which
serves as an explanation, because our adver-
saries clamor for '' positive " or ''mathemati-
cal " proofs. The burden lies with them, to
prove the hypothesis untenable and the solu-
tion unsatisfactory.

VIII. The fact, the nature and the
tcses of Paradox in Scripture, should be
carefully noted.

A Paradox is an apparent contradic-
tion where real harmony exists ; a
seeming absurdity which is still a fact, or
a truth. The famous ''Hydrostatic"
and " mechanical " paradoxes will illus-
trate this principle.

There are in Scripture three sorts of
paradoxes.

I. The Proverbial. Proverbs xxvi. 4, 5.

" Answer a fool, according to his folly ; "
" Answer not a fool according to his folly."

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 59

The reconciliation is plain : there are cases
in which a course, proper at other times, is
unwise. A fool may ask a question, to answer
which may be to identify one's self with his
folly: again he may ask a question, to answer
which may be to show him his folly.

2. The Doctrinal.

Philippians ii. 12, Work out your own salva-
tion, for it is God which zvorketh in you both
to will and to do.

No man can conic to me except the Father
draw him :

Ye ivill not conic to me, etc. John vi. 44 ; v.
40.

3. The Prophetical.

Isaiah liii. abounds in these — there are in
this chapter at least twelve :

Christ was a Root out of dry ground, yet
fruitful ; Christ was without form or beauty,
yet God's elect Servant ; Christ was despised
and rejected, yet the accepted Messiah ; Christ
was the Suffering and Dying, yet Living Sav-
iour ; Christ was without generation, yet having
numerous Seed ; Christ was making grave with
the wicked, yet with the rich ; Christ was in
adversity, yet in prosperity ; Christ was de-

6o STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

feated and despoiled, yet conquering and
despoiling ; Christ was cut off in the midst of
days, yet prolonging his days ; Christ was
condemned himself, yet satisfying many, etc.,
etc.

J^ROM THE WORD OF GOD. 6 1

PART III.

THE USES OF DISCREPANCIES.

We now approach one final question ;

Do these so called Discrcpajicies serve
any Providential purpose?

We cannot believe that they are wholly
accidental ; and a careful and reflective
study will show us that they do answer
certain very important ends. A few of
these it may be well to mention.

I. These apparent discrepancies serve
first of all to show us that the Author of
the Bible h?i^ guarded even its text from
essential corruptions.

How little all these discrepancies amount to
in the aggregate, is amazing. With all these
extant manuscripts and all the various sources
wlience they emanate, the text of the scriptures
is in all vital matters essentially unimpaired.

The variations arc numerous but unimpor-
tant. They consist of differences in orthog-
raphy, in the selection and collocation of

62 STUMBLIi^G STONES REMOVED

words, and other minor matters. In the He-
brew manuscripts over three quarters of a mill-
ion of various readings may be counted, as to
cojisonants alone, and so we may say, in propor-
tion, of the New Testament. But they are of
little or no account in the main, and do not
affect the sense any more than the different
spellings of such words as ' fulfil,' ' plough,' etc.

The Masorites, superstitiously punctilious
as they were, became, in the Providence of God,
guardians of the text of sacred scripture.
They counted, classified and recorded, verses,
words, and even letters, so that the Bible has
come down to us with a text purer and more
certain than that of any other ancient book.
In the manuscripts of Terence, and within a
much less space than our New Testament, Dr.
Bentley found 20,000 various lections, and
affirmed his belief that upon further search he
would more than double the number of such
discoveries.

In the manuscripts, collated for Griesbach's
Testament, 150,000 various readings occur.
Yet it is remarkable that, notwithstanding
these hundreds of thousands of variations, the
substance of scripture is not, by any of them,
or by all of them together, materially affected;
not one article of faith, not one moral duty,
not one theological doctrine, not one essential
truth, is in the slightest modified. The varia-

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 63

tions are mostly trivial, relating mainly to the
names, numbers, dates, or to the letters of words.
And the grand result is that, with the exception
of perhaps from a dozen to twenty verses, the
text of every chapter, paragraph and even sen-
tence of scripture, is now so firmly settled that
only the meaning is open to doubt or dispute.
Compare this result with the results of the
study of Shakesperian manuscripts. See Haley,
p. 47.

II. These discrepancies serve to
awaken and stimitlate intellecHcal inquiry
and investigation. It is the study which
these apparent disagreements have made
necessary, by which we have been led to
the discovery of the purest text.

As variations were found, they naturally
compelled a searching and scholarly compari-
son of all extant manuscripts. To ascertain
the exact date and source of each manuscript,
to investigate into the period of its origin and
the claims which it possessed to recognition,
caused a vast expenditure of learning, time
and pains. And the consequence is that, as
families have traced their lineage for ages, into
a remote past, so we have developed a new and
distinct science, that may be called the ** Gene-

64 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

a logy of the Manuscripts^ Compare West-
cott and Hort's Introduction to the New Test-
ament.

III. These discrepancies furthermore
teach us that, valuable as is the letter of
scripture, the t7'7tth which it conveys is of
vastly higher importance.

God permitted slight variations to find their
way into the text, while He preserved the
testimony of all the manuscripts essentially
uniform, unvarying and consistent ; and thus
we are led to look supremely, not at the diver-
gence, but at the convergence of their testi-
mony in one burning focal point of harmo-
nious truth.

IV. These discrepancies have estab-
lished the Independence aad Integrity of
the sacred writers.

There may be too close a correspondence in
the testimony of witnesses ; what was intended
to confirm may thus tend to condemn. The
entire absence of seeming collision, even in
trifling details or minutise, argues intentional
collusion, or conspiracy to deceive.

In courts of law, evidence, given by different

FROM THE WOK I) OF GOP. (".5

parties, wliich exactly vau\ minutel}- ai^rees, is
presumptive proof of a previous arrangement.
For instance, in New Bedford, the famous
" Rowland will " case involved $2,000,000,
and $150,000 were spent in costs of a trial
extending over two years. The whole issue
turned upon the resemblance between two
signatures both of which were claimed as
Miss Rowland's. So precisely, however, did
the second match the first, that it was held to
be a forged imitation.

Those who cavil at slight variations in the
gospel narratives, forget that the test of truthful
testimony on the part of witnesses, is substan-
tial agreement with circumstantial variations.

V. These discrepancies have rather
proven the real vahie of the Word of God.

For more than fifteen centuries the com-
plete Bible has been the target of malignant,
bitter hostility and assault. Every expedient
of learning as well as ridicule has been ex-
hausted to overthrow it. It has been sub-
jected to microscopic scrutiny, and yet these
insignificant * defects,' as they are assumed to
be by the enemies of the truth and by some so-
called friends, are all that can be found to
justify the opposition to the Bible as the
inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God !

66 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

Rev. J. H. Brookes, D. D., of St. Louis, once
offered $500.00 reward to any one who would
point out a single irreconcilable contradiction
in the Word of God. After four weeks' study a
sceptic claimed the reward : he had made the
great discovery, and here it is :

" Matthew xii. 30. He that is not with me
is against me."

*' Luke ix. 50. He that is not against us is
for us (!!)."

VL These discrepancies are used of
God to instruct the docile believer.

Christ told his disciples that he used
Parables so that truth might at once be
veiled from the unteachable and yet re-
vealed to the obedient and docile. For
the same reason God uses contradictions.
Paradoxes are parables; by the very
contrariety which they exhibit they stim-
ulate thought, and arouse curiosity ; by
the effort to reconcile them we are some-
times more profited than by any mere
comparison of similar statements. Com-
pare John XV. 15, and xvi. 12.

Prophetic paradoxes serve also another use :
they are designed as Enigmas, presenting a

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 67

mystery to be afterwards solved by the event.
Thus the mystery which they suggest becomes
a lock, to which history becomes the key; and
the perfect fitting of key and lock proves a
divine hand in both the prophecy and the his-
tory. Compare Ezek. xii. 13, witli Jer. xxxix.

7-

Proverbial paradoxes compel reflection by
their apparent divergence, just as views in a
stereoscope often make necessary a fixed and
patient gaze, in order to bring the two pictures
into harmony and unity. We find after care-
ful study that the two members of a paradox
are evidently meant to balance each other,
each helping to limit, extend, qualify or modify
its complementary member. They present
extremes between which we are to find the
golden mean of truth, as the mariner finds it
his safe course to steer midway between two
headlands, or as the mechanician produces a
resultant by using two forces which act at
right angles to each other. (See Haley.)

VII. These discrepancies also become
a test of the candor and ge^mznefiess of
the Bible reader or student.

The great Teacher presented truth in forms
suited to attract the truth lover, but to repel
the hypocritical and insincere. His teaching

68 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

thus became a sifting process, separating the
real from the nominal followers. See John vi.
35-69. In this case those who heard Christ's
words "murmured at him," "strove among
themselves," called them " hard sayings," were
" offended," and some " went back and walked
no more with him." Yet it will be seen that,
with every increase of their opposition, Christ,
instead of modifying and mollifying his teach-
ing, rather increased its apparent severity. He
knew that each concession to unbelief and an
unteachable spirit, would only embolden the
demand for new concessions. When the
disobedient stumbled at his saying, instead of
retracting or qualifying his statement, he at
least repeated it, in even in its obnoxious form.
Compare John iii. 3-7.

Our Lord seemed to give, to such as sought
it, an occasion of stumbling. When modern
teachers find any statement of truth, such as
the sovereignty of God, an occasion of offence
to a hearer, they make haste to soften and
qualify it. Just now the church universal is
busy revising creeds, as though to adapt them
to the demands of a worldly type of christian
character, and a rationalistic spirit. Let us
remember that by every concession we make
reason bolder in its demand that everything
shall be squared to its measure. Christ in pur-
suing just the contrary course taught his

FROJr THE WORD OF GOD. 69

hearers to bow implicitly and submit with
docility to the truth — or else he left them to
stumble over it and fall and be broken.

VIII. Thus these discrepancies also
discipline the triLc believer to yield an un-
questio7iing obedience to the tridh.

Reason has its province : (a) to determine
upon rational grounds of evidence whether or
not the Bible be the word of God ; (b) then to
determine what that word teaches; and (c)
what are the relations or bearings of its teach-
ing upon one's self and one's duty. Beyond this
the province of reason ceases, and the province
of faith and obedience begins. For instance
prophecy is of great significance and conse-
quence, as it is 07i€^ if not the main one, of
those " seven seals " set by God as His sanction
upon His Word. Other evidences may appeal
to believers as more satisfactory, but these
evidences demand faith for their recognition,
reception and appreciation. When an inquirer
comes, in doubt and darkness, to the Bible, to
find proofs that it is the Word of God, and
therefore has a claim on his faith, predictive
prophecy is God's grand appeal to his reason.
" We have also a more sure word of prophecy,
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed as unto
a light that shineth in a dark place, until

70 S TUMBL ING S TONES RE MO FED

the day dawn and the day star arise in your
hearts."

In fact our perception of truth largely de-
pends upon our spiritual attaiiiuient. Hence
paradoxes are often reconciled by simple obed-
ience. Jno. vii. 17. By doing His will we
come to know the doctrine. There is a hid-
den harmony — a higher harmony that is hid-
den from us — until we yield up our whole soul
and self to God for service, and yield up our
whole heart and mind to truth in rever-
ence.

Many so called discrepancies are due to the
disposition and determination of unfair and
uncandid critics ; " aiit inveniam discrepoitiam
aut faciam^ What Whately says about wise
men and fools may be said about objectors :
It is easier to ask, than to answer, a question,
and many a man can present a difficulty who
could not remove it.

In Voltaire's library a Swedish traveler found
Calmet's Commentary, with slips of paper in-
serted, on which all the difficulties Calmet had
treated were carefully noted, but not one of
the answers and solutiotis whereby he met and
refuted them.

Prof. Henry Rogers says, that Strauss'
" Life of Jesus " should be called, " a collection
of all the difficulties and discrepancies which
honest criticism has discovered, or perverted

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 7 1

ingenuity imagined, in the four evangelists."
Haley 27, 28.

Thus what veils truth from carnal minds
may reveal it to the spiritual : and the same doc-
trine that is a stiiDihling stone to the unbeliever
is a stepping stone to the believer, i Pet. ii. 8.

IX. The obscurity of scripture is pro-
bably made to serve to godless reader's a
judicial end.

The captious, cavilling critic is punished by
finding the very snares which he seeks, and
falling into them. Perhaps he tries to make
faith impossible in others, and ends by making
his own mind simply a nest of objections, a
perch for the unclean birds of doubt and de-
nial of truth, so that faith can find no resting
place in himself. He tries in a dishonest spirit
to prove the Word of God a human fraud and
falsehood, and is himself given over by God to
believe what at the beginning he knew was a
lie. He, who did not like to retain God in his
knowledge, and who held down the truth in
unrighteousness, and sought to turn the truth
of God into a lie, is given over to a reprobate
mind. The Judge of all abandons him to
strong delusion.

X. Where all attempts at explanation
or reconciliation fail, the believer must

72 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

learn patiaitly to ivait for the further
light which dissolves all doubt.

This introduces another department
of the subject, which the author has exten-
sively treated in another work entitled
"Many Infallible Proofs."

The investigation into discrepancies
has served to reveal hundreds and thou-
sands of agreements which would not
otherwise have been disclosed, and which
are truly wonderful as the evidences of
the divine authorship of the Bible, as well
as of the integrity of the human agents
which the Spirit of God employed in its
production.

The Bible has been decried and derided as
in hopeless opposition to science and irrecon-
cilable conflict with modern discovery. But
the further the investigation is carried the
more marvelous proves the agreement be-
tween the word of God and the most advanced
certainties attained by science.

The substantial agreement between the story
of the creation and the discoveries of geology ;
the word '* firmament " or expajisc, as applied
to the space between the heavens and the
earth ; the order of creation, from the lowest

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 73

types to the highest — fish, reptile, bird, maiii-
inal, man ; the countless number of the stars
(Jer. xxxiii. 22) , the four supports of life —
brain, lungs, heart, nervous system, with the
circulation of the blood (Eccles. xii. 6, 7) ; the
nature of light, as called forth, not " made "
(Gen. i,); and as a mode of motion or vibration
akin to sound or music (Job xxxviii. 7, Ps.
Ixv. 8, — Hebrew, to give forth bvirations — Ps.
xix. etc.) ; these are a very few of the startling
agreements between the Bible and scientific
facts not knoivn by man until long after the
Bible was complete !

Modern believing scientists may well ask,
how the infidel can account for such anticipa-
tions of modern discovery. Compare Ps. cxix.
32, with the fact that the staghound, fleetest
in chase, has the largest heart, in comparison to
his size, of any animal. The ant's brain is
entirely composed of the gray matter, whose
preponderance in the brain is the measure of
intelligence. Compare Prov. vi. 6. The agri-
cidttiral ant does prepare a harvest — as recent
investigation shows — and Solomon did not
blunder in taking for grai?t the ant eggs or
pup?e. Compare Prov. xxx. 25. Man ivas
made of the dust of the ground — and the most
recent analysis shows his identity in material
substance with the ground on which he treads,
etc., etc. Compare Gen. i. and ii.

74 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

To those who wish to examine the wonder-
ful agreement of the Bible with the facts of
history — one of the foremost of sciences — we
commend the careful study of prophecy, even
to its nihmte details, for the uiimite details of
prophecy are vital to the prophetic proofs ; it
is these minutiae that remove a prediction from
the realm of sagacious human forecast into
that of divinely inspired foresight. It is these
also that make the difference between the law of
"simple" and of "compound probability."
Every single prediction has but a Jialf chanee
of fulfillment ; and hence every additional de-
tail halves again the possibility of a mere
accidental accomplishment. In the Old Testa-
ment the predictions concerning Messiah, which
are most indisputable as predictions, because
most undeniably remote from the events which
they foretell, are also the most astonishingly
minute in their details. The late Canon Lid-
don, in his famous Bampton lectures, gives
three hundred and thirty-three particulars,
prophesied about Messiah, and all meeting in
him alone. By the law of compound prob-
ability we must raise one-half to its three
hundred and thirty-second power to get the
insignificant fraction which represents the pos-
sibility of a chance fulfillment ; that fraction
will have, as its numerator, a unit, and its
denominator will reach ninety-four places I

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 75

Who audaciously dares to say that tlie slightest
particular is of no consequence ? The ances-
tral line, the exact place, time, and circum-
stances of Christ's birth, with hundreds of
most curiously minute marks, go to make up
and complete that Old Testament portrait-
ure of the " Coming One ; " and, even when
Christ hung upon the cross, he could not say,
" It is finished I " and expire, until the last
and least Scripture should " be fulfilled ; " and
so He said, '* I thirst ! " And yet that forecast
of his dying agony was not in a formal predic-
tion, but in a Psalm, a poem whose true mean-
ing is read only when in its jewelled cavern
the Light of the World is set !

In a portrait, the entire fidelity of the re-
semblance may depend upon one line which
changes or determines that subtle thing called
'■^ expressio7i ! " One delicate touch on the eye-
brow, the turn or curve of an almost invisible
line about the mouth, a tinge or a shade of
color on the cheek, a vein in the forehead, one
dainty stroke in that concave of the upper lip — •
these make the difference between the work of
the master artist and his amateur pupils. And
the Holy Ghost proves himself the Divine
Artist, more if possible by his most minute
and delicate strokes and touches than by
his bolder and more conspicuous outlines.
What was, at first, a drawing without color,

76 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

at last becomes a complete, recognizable por-
trait.

CONCLUSION.

The grand purpose and aim we have
had in view in this little book, has been
to exalt the stipremacy of scripture.
Various attempts are making, in these
days, to impair confidence in the claim of
the Bible to be the Inspired and Infalli-
ble Word of God, and the supreme guide
in faith and duty. We are in the midst
of the war of the ages, and the enemy is
assaulting the center and stronghold of
the Christian religion ; for with its Sacred
Book is inseparably bound up its Sacred
Person,

Some of the friends of the Bible seek to
accommodate themselves to the positions of
its foes, by giving up the infallibility and in-
errancy of the scripture, and conceding that
there are *' mistakes "and even *' immorali-
ties " in the Bible ; but such defenders of the
Word of God claim that its inspiration is to be
found not in the " words " but the *' concept."

We regard this position as wholly untena-
ble, and as a virtual surrender of the Bible as

I'ROM THE WORD OF GOD. yj

a Divine Book. And wc lift up a warning
against such views, by whomsoever promul-
gated.

The contents of this Book of Books are
especially made emphatic in its very title,
"The Word of God." Repeatedly does the
expression occur, '* Words which I command
thee," etc. Paul echoes the Old Testament
sentiment in the New : " which things also we
speak, 7iot in ivords ivhicJi mans wisdom teach-
ethy but which the Holy Ghost tcachcth.'' And
he adds, " comparing spiritual things with
spiritual," which, by not a few, is regarded as
a simple expansion of the meaning i. e., "ex-
pressing spiritual truths in spiritual forms."

Wordsworth says, " Language is the incar-
nation of thought." Burke regarded every
word in a sentence as one of the feet on which
the sentence walks ; and said that, to alter a
word, change it for a longer or shorter one, or
give it a different position, might change the
whole course of the sentence. There are in
the Bible thousands of cases in which the
accuracy of the " concept " depends on the ex-
actness of the '' word," and even of the shade
of meaning which it conveys and by which it
is separated from others of its class. When
God sought to convey to man an adequate
*' concept " of spiritual truth, the task was the
more difficult from the fact that heavenly

78 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

things were to be conveyed to earthly minds
and through earthly channels. How could
even God impart a knowledge of such matters
without leaving the door open to serious, if
not fatal, error, unless he guided, at least by
supervision and control, the very words in
which divine conceptions were clothed ?

No reader of the New Testament Greek
needs to be told that the whole Epistle to the
Romans turns on a single word {(hucuoavvri) ;
and so important is it that the reader shall not
misunderstand that word, and the exact sense
in which it is employed, that in Rom. iii. 25
-26, the meaning is exactly and repeatedly de-
fined, •' To declare, I say, at this time his
righteousness : that He might be just and the
justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." That
is righteousness, in the sense of this epistle.
Are we to be told that the concept is the
inspired thing, not the word ? How are we
to get the true concept apart from the right
word? To form a wrong conception of justifi-
cation, as here used, is to misconceive that
doctrinal truth which lies at the very basis of
our salvation. There are over five thousand
instances in Old and New Testaments where
the most important distinctions hang on the
choice of a particular word, and no other,
however like it, will suffice.

It is unsafe to make the Bible and the

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 79

Church, and the human Reason joint, or co-ordi-
nate, sources of divine authority. Both the
Church and Reason are authoritative only as
they are conformed to, and are confirmed by,
the Word of God. The voice of our rational
powers, and even the conuininis consensus
Christianoriivi, like the fallible standards of
weights and measures, need correction by the
infallible, as the watch is regulated by the
chronometer, and even the chronometer by
God's clock, the stars. The mariner dares not
follow even his compass as an absolute guide,
lest he lose his course, if not his vessel. The
needle may have intensity of directive force
and susceptibility, but it has its variations;
the magnetic pole must be corrected by the
celestial pole. Reason and conscience, and
even the verdict of the Church, all belong to
the human and fallible, and we must steer by
the constellations.

The supremacy of the Word of God is the
last great truth which is the Palladium of
Church and the believer. When that falls, all
else falls with it No disaster is too great to
follow the destruction of that safeguard of
Protestantism. And we should look well be-
fore we admit any teaching which actually
surrenders this inmost citadel of our faith, or
even by implication weakens or lessens the
absolute supremacy of the word of God.

8o STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

We therefore earnestly ask all who
wish to know the truth and find the hid-
den treasures of the Word, not to be
kept from a thorough exploration of its
hidden beauties by any apparent and
superficial discordancies and disagree-
ments. These are but the iron gates
that seem forbidding but that yield to
the touch of a reverent and obedient
spirit and admit us to the " House Beau-
tiful."

And a Beautiful Palace it is, "built
upon the fotmdation of the apostles and
Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief corner-stone." \n formation^ com-
posed of the most precious materials
faintly typified in the cedar and shittim
woods, and the gold, silver and precious
stones. In coiistructioUy it follows the
law of a divine unity and archetypal
beauty. In completeness, it is divinely
perfect. The believer finds all his wants
and cravings met. In its refectory it has
milk for babes, and the manna, the meat,
the honey, for strong men ; in its lavatory
are the fountains of the water and the

FROM THE WORD OF GOD. 8 1

blood, that cleanse and sanctify ; In Its
pharmacy, the balm of Gilead and the
panacea for all ills of sin ; In its armory,
the whole panoply of God ; In Its gallery,
the portraits of the prophets, patriarchs,
apostles and saints ; in Its oratory, the
altars of sacrifice and incense, prayer and
praise ; in its conservatory, the celestial
plants that bloom in the paradise of God;
and in Its observatory, the outlook into
the very heavens, where we may behold
the face of God.

Blessed is he who enters into all the
wonders of God's "House Beautiful"
whose vestibule is so low and whose doors
are so narrow that only the humble and
obedient soul, who bows as he goes in,
can enter at all ; and whose Inmost
wonders are to be seen only in the clear
light of the Holy Spirit's guidance, who
with celestial lamps Illumines the secrets
of God to him who, In dependence on the
great Interpreter, searches the scrip-
tures.

With the prayer that each reader may
learn to find in what, to the profane and

S2 STUMBLING STONES REMOVED.

godless, are a stone of stumbling and a
rock of offence, the stepping stones to
higher knowledge and faith, the author
bids his reader

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